Worthy of love

       We have a bit of a luxury. We from several vantage points have the benefit of the gift of faith. Even if we have not experienced the loving hand and heart of Jesus in our lives, we know the historical figure who at the very least was a prophet. To believers, Jesus is the Word made flesh, God, Son of God and lover of all creation.

       That last one about lover of creation is truly present in today's passage from Mark.

Jesus consorts with the most unlikely people. It is not an accident or a rare occasion. Jesus always seeks out the marginalized in his ministry. The leper, the blind sinners, the lame, the dead, the sick, the tax collectors, the occupying army's Centurion and his lover. 

        Are there any limits to Jesus' love and inclusion?  The answer is a resolute no. There are no limits. God created all, God loves all. Jesus does not hold the same  judgments that humans do and has a vision of humanity not in just what we can do or should do but sees something more, deeper, more profound. Jesus seems to see a beautiful essence that we often overlook. We fail to see with the eyes of God, the eyes of Love, the eyes of hope.

       If we fail to see what Jesus sees, what God sees in everyone of us, it is because we fail to see the magnificence in ourselves. We stay quite too busy judging ourselves as much as we judge others. I suspect deeply rooted in our judgment and even hate of others is a strong dislike of ourselves. We easily pass judgment on ourselves when it really is equally easy to love ourselves. Whatever we use to cut ourselves down, God sees a journey to wholeness that cannot be demeaned or debased. God sees the whole picture, the essence and the  purity of who we are. Can we? 

        The only way to follow the commandment to love others is to also love ourselves. We cannot dismiss our flaws or mistakes but we also cannot take those as the basis for the entirety of who we are. Jesus did not see sinners in that way. Jesus welcomed in unrestricted fashion and thought His love worthy for all. Can we do so for ourselves and others?

Mark 2:13-22

 Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

 And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’